‘Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters’ by Meredith Zeitlin

 Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

Kelsey Finkelstein is fourteen and FRUSTRATED. Every time she tries to live up to her awesome potential, her plans are foiled – by her impossible parents, her annoying little sister, and life in general. But with her first day of high school coming up, Kelsey is positive that things are going to change. Enlisting the help of her three best friends — sweet and quiet Em, theatrical Cass, and wild JoJo — Kelsey gets ready to rebrand herself and make the kind of mark she knows is her destiny. 

Things start out great - her arch-nemesis has moved across the country, giving Kelsey the perfect opportunity to stand out on the soccer team and finally catch the eye of her long-time crush. But soon enough, an evil junior’s thirst for revenge, a mysterious photographer, and a series of other catastrophes make it clear that just because KELSEY has a plan for greatness… it doesn’t mean the rest of the world is in on it.

Some are born popular, some achieve popularity, and others (like Kelsey Finkelstein) intend to thrust themselves into popularity in their freshman year of high school. Or, at least, that was the plan.

‘Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters’ is the debut young adult novel by Meredith Zeitlin.

Sometimes I think I might be getting a little too old for certain YA books… I don’t get ‘Bieber fever’, I have no intentions of listening to ‘One Direction’ and I have started asking sales assistants to “please turn the music down just a smidge?” in clothes shops. Then a book comes along that reminds me I can still be young at heart, and live vicariously (and happily) through a character and be transported back to a time when high school was the be all and end all. ‘Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters’ is just such a book, and Kelsey Finkelstein is just such a protagonist.

When the book opens, things are looking up for Kelsey. She has grand plans and high hopes – her arch nemesis has moved away, she’s going to be the star of her school soccer team and resident boy-crush, Jordan, is in her sights. High school, Kelsey is sure, is going to be the turning point in her life…

JoJo gives me a raised eyebrow. “What’s going on, Kels? You have some big plan in mind or something?”
“No, not really. Just… well, we’re in high school now. Obviously. And… it’s time to defy expectations! To… change people’s perceptions of us! I mean, I just feel like this year could be–”
“High school is still school, you know,” JoJo scoffs. “Lame, unlikely to result in anything useful, and–”
“Anyway, I’ve decided to really…do something this year. To make a mark. Stand out. Revamp myself for a new era. You know, like Lindsay Lohan.”
“You want to go to jail?” Cass asks, looking perplexed.
I sigh. “You’re killing me, Cass.” 

And then it all goes horribly wrong, naturally… Kelsey is betrayed by one of her best friends. She’s cast as a bearded fat man in her school play and she lost an arch nemesis, only to gain a new one in high school. So much for grand plans and high hopes.

Zeitlin’s book is a frolicking joy ride through the pitfalls of high school, but it’s also a book to prompt reminiscence. Kelsey’s story is a page-turner, mostly because her bumbling ways will hark you back to your own high school days… back then crushes seemed like true love, best friend betrayals felt like the end of the world and being a social outcast was like being exiled to Siberia. For those of us who are not American, ‘freshman year’ is equivalent to ninth grade in high school – while reading Zeitlin’s book I did find myself getting caught up in the minutiae of school politics and battlegrounds. That vicarious empathy is, in large part, thanks to Kelsey’s incredible narrative voice – she’s so charismatic and naïve, sometimes painfully innocent and absurdly optimistic that you do find yourself cheering her on throughout the book.

The characters in this book are to-die-for awesome. Kelsey’s besties are Em, Cass & JoJo and they’re a laugh riot together. And then there was Kelsey’s uber-embarassing family to cap off the hilarity. But my favourite character was Ben – the nice guy who shares many a witty repartee with Kelsey.

‘Freshman Year & Other Unnatural Disasters’ is a squirm-inducing, chortle-fest of loveliness. This is just one of those great books that has a little something for everyone. Younger readers will find a hilarious comrade in Kelsey Finkelstein, as she navigates the murky waters of high school. Older readers will enjoy a cringe-worthy reminiscence to their own high school days, and fondly read Kelsey bumbling along her way to discovering what really matters in life.

5/5

'Fair Game' Alpha and Omega #3 by Patricia Briggs

From the BLURB:

They say opposites attract. And in the case of werewolves Anna Latham and Charles Cornick, they mate. The son-and enforcer-of the leader of the North American werewolves, Charles is a dominant alpha. While Anna, an omega, has the rare ability to calm others of her kind. 

Now that the werewolves have revealed themselves to humans, they can't afford any bad publicity. Infractions that could have been overlooked in the past must now be punished, and the strain of doing his father's dirty work is taking a toll on Charles. 

Nevertheless, Charles and Anna are sent to Boston, when the FBI requests the pack's help on a local serial killer case. They quickly realize that not only the last two victims were werewolves-all of them were. Someone is targeting their kind. And now Anna and Charles have put themselves right in the killer's sights...

A serial killer who has evaded capture for decades has now turned an eye to werewolves and Fae. In Boston there has been a slew of murders; women and children abducted, raped and tortured before being killed. The suspected killer continues to run circles around the FBI, but when a number of werewolves fall victim the Marrok steps in and sends his best to aid the authorities.

Normally Charles Cornick would be the last person to help the FBI in their investigations. The werewolf ‘boogeyman’, Charles is less than hospitable at the best of times … but he has grown worse in recent months, with the ghosts of vengeful werewolves haunting him. Charles is not the best man to finesse this job with the FBI, but his wife is.

Anna snorted and lied like a politician. “Look. Becoming a werewolf doesn’t make you a serial killer – and it doesn’t make you a superhero, either. Whoever you were, that’s who you are. If a bad guy gets Changed, he’s still a bad guy. However, we police our own and we’re pretty good at it. Mostly we’re just ordinary people who turn into a wolf during the full moon and go out and hunt rabbits.”

Anna Cornick, a precious Omega werewolf, knows a thing or two about being a victim. It is her intention to make sure she and Charles aid the FBI in catching this deranged killer, and ensure no more people (werewolf, Fae and human alike) are never again made to be victims of a madman.

‘Fair Game’ is the third book in Patricia Brigg’s ‘Alpha & Omega’ urban fantasy series, a spin-off of her original ‘Mercedes Thompson’ series.

‘Fair Game’ is one of the most anticipated paranormal novels of 2012, but I can safely assume that fans of Patricia Briggs have been counting down to the book’s release for quite a few years. Fans have not read a Charles & Anna book since the 2009 instalment, ‘Hunting Ground’. A new contract for Briggs negotiated that she would have alternate release years between ‘Alpha & Omega’ and ‘Mercedes Thompson’ – so while 2011 gave us ‘River Marked’, we will have to wait until 2013 for a new Mercy instalment. Alternatively, we won’t be revisiting Charles & Anna again until 2014 (if at all?). That makes ‘Fair Game’ about as precious as hen’s teeth, and places a high level of expectation on a novel that has been so long in coming, and will be a while in returning … so it’s lucky then that Briggs delivers, ten-fold!

Readers pick up the story when times for North American werewolves are tough. Since being ‘outed’ to the public, the wolves have had to partake of some serious PR campaigns, to convince humans (and more importantly; law-makers and the media) that they are not the monsters of comic books and horror films. To this end a tough love initiative has been enforced by Bran Cornick, Marrok of the wolves. Any misbehaving wolves that step out of line are not given three strikes or warnings – instead they are dealt with harshly and swiftly, and the deathblow comes from Bran’s son and executioner, Charles Cornick.

Charles has always been the North American werewolf law enforcement – but this public awareness and PR campaign has seen his job increase exponentially. He no longer has his mate, Anna, accompany him on interstate missions that see him enter pack territories and kill misbehaving werewolves (whose actions could lead to explosive news stories on the violence of the species). As a result of an increased kill-load and strict ‘show no mercy’ hard line approach, Charles’s mind is slowly buckling under the pressure. He sees ghosts when he looks in the mirror and has turned away from Anna’s comfort, silencing their mate bond for fearing of infecting her with his darkness.

When the Boston killing spree (which includes the murder of innocent werewolves) is bought to Bran’s attention, he sends Charles along with Anna on her advice – to give Charles a chance to be the ‘good guy’, and remind him who the bad guys really are.

When ‘Fair Game’ begins, a few months have passed since the events of ‘Hunting Ground’. In that second book Anna was only just starting to come into her own, to stand up for herself, learn to fight and move on from the horrors of her past. When ‘Fair Game’ begins Anna is a whole new person, and Charles is the emotionally weaker of the two. The altered dynamics are instantly recognized, and alarming for their switch.

From the moment we met him in Mercy’s first book, ‘Moon Called’, Charles has been the stoic warrior. He has always done what needs to be done, his father’s right-hand-man. Charles is executioner to Bran’s judge and jury. So to read his altered mind-set in ‘Fair Game’ is disarming, and illustrates just how far the fracture goes. He has locked down his mate bond with Anna, he doesn’t sing anymore and is seriously thinking that his time as a sane werewolf is at an end. And, really, his love for Anna is all that is keeping Charles afloat in his dark days… he sees it as a selfish love, knowing that his soul is deteriorating, but he holds on to Anna because she is the only peace he has ever known, and he loves her too much to let her go.

To try to encase his Anna in bubble wrap would be to kill the woman who protected him with her grandmother’s marble rolling pin. She was the woman he fell in love with.

Anna, meanwhile, has transformed into a fierce and feisty young woman. She does not bend before Bran’s stubbornness, and while Charles’s dark outlook has been sending other people scurrying, Anna meets his despair with unwavering loyalty and the steadfast belief in her ability to help him. Anna is such a wonderful character – and with ‘Fair Game’ Briggs is illustrating her character arc and transformation. From Anna’s beaten and terrified introduction in ‘On the Prowl’, to this sweet and tough mate in ‘Fair Game’. I have always thought that Anna and her character path was sort of running in the opposite direction to Mercedes. Anna started out beaten and downtrodden, and over the course of her series she is learning to rebuild and not be fearful… Mercedes, meanwhile, was bought up a coyote amongst wolves and learned to hold her own against bigger predators. For a long time, Mercedes was a little cocky … until the events of  ‘Iron Kissed’ saw her confidence shattered and her soul wounded. It’s only now, with Anna in ‘Fair Game’ and Mercedes in ‘River Marked’, that both women are feeling whole again; ready to face down the demons of their past and rebuild. I’m interested to know what happens next – when the internal conflicts are (mostly) overcome, what will be the next hurdle that these characters have to overcome…

And, on that note, there is a hint, in ‘Fair Game’, of a possible direction that Anna & Charles’s story could go in the near future… Anna is thinking about the werewolf cause, now that her kind is out in the open, and what benefits werewolves will reap from being in the public domain. No werewolf female can reproduce – the change is too harsh on the foetus and remaining wolf for nine months is too risky on one’s psyche. So what about adoption rights for werewolves? Surrogacy? These are all very interesting topics that Briggs is bringing up, and I do hope that even though it’s a passing thought in ‘Fair Game’, that it’s a hint of things to come…

I will warn that a lot of ‘Fair Game’ is police procedural. Charles and Anna are involved in an FBI investigation, so a lot of ‘Fair Game’ is concentrated on catching the killer, looking for clues. Each Briggs book is a ‘whodunit’ in some sense, but ‘Fair Game’ more than most feels crime-heavy, with Charles’s emotional state the real focus of the book. That being said, ‘Alpha & Omega’ is very much a romance, and there is plenty of Charles & Anna sweetness in ‘Fair Game’, reminding me why these two are one of my all-time favourite couples in urban fantasy!

The end of ‘Fair Game’ is a game-changer for the series… which will also impact the ‘Mercedes Thompson’ world. I refuse to give anything away because the shocking finale is too draw-droppingly good to spoil. The end also has me salivating for the next Mercy book (hurry up 2013!) and crossing my fingers for at least one more Charles & Anna book (2014? Pretty please?).

Patricia Briggs is one of the best urban fantasy writers around at the moment. Both her ‘Mercedes Thompson’ and ‘Alpha & Omega’ series are sublimely sensational spins on the old werewolf folklore, and ‘Fair Game’ is a highly anticipated instalment in a much-missed spin-off series. Charles & Anna’s relationship is as complex and epically romantic as always, and the character transformations in this novel are incredible and unsettling. There is upheaval in Briggs’s werewolf world, and I can’t wait to read what happens next.

5/5

'Rainshadow Road' Friday Harbor #2 by Lisa Kleypas

From the BLURB:

Lucy Marinn is a glass artist living in mystical, beautiful, Friday Harbor, Washington, with a boyfriend, Kevin, who she believes is her soul mate. She has always had a magical side - a gift that finds its way into the breathtaking glasswork she creates - and she struggles to keep it contained. But when Lucy is blindsided by the most bitter kind of betrayal, she questions many of her choices. Her boyfriend leaves her and his new lover is none other than Lucy's own sister. Lucy's bitterness over this devastation is multiplied buy the fact that she has constantly made the wrong choices in her romantic life.

Meanwhile, facing the severe disapproval of Lucy's family, Kevin asks his friend Sam Nolan, a local vineyard owner on the San Juan Island, to "romance" Lucy so that she can more easily move on. But when Sam and Lucy begin to feel real sparks between them, Lucy must ask herself if she can easily risk her heart again.

As Lucy questions her beliefs about love, loyalty, and old patterns, mistakes, and new beginnings, she explores the possibility that some things in life - even after are being broken - can be re-made into something beautiful. And that is the only by discovering who you really are that you can find the one who truly deserves you

Lucy’s bad day is rapidly turning into a bad year.

First, her boyfriend of two years dumps her. But Kevin doesn’t let her down easy, oh no! He needs Lucy to move out of their San Juan apartment pronto, because her sister, Alice, is moving in… her younger sister, who it turns out Kevin has been cheating on her with.

Lucy really shouldn’t be so surprised. Little Alice has always taken what she wants and damns the consequences. A childhood illness left Alice, the Marinn family darling, precious and spoilt, so she has never had to struggle or work for anything – and she sees Kevin as just one more entitlement.

In the wake of her bitter break-up, Lucy takes solace in her glass-blowing artwork. Shutting herself away in her studio, left to work with the beautiful coloured glass making sculptures, ornaments and stained-glass windows to her broken hearts content. She moves into a local B&B, run by cousins Justine and Zöe. Lucy swears off men, and focuses all her energy on winning a New York art program scholarship…

And then fate throws Sam Nolan in Lucy’s path. Sam is a local wine grower, who lives in a beautiful, sprawling and dilapidated Victorian house with his older brother, Mark, and their orphaned niece, Holly.

The Nolan brothers did not have an idyllic childhood. The product of two dependent alcoholics, the Nolan name was blackened for many years in San Juan – and it’s only in recent times, with Sam’s successful grapes and Mark’s roaring coffee-bean industry that they’re starting to be accepted into the small town. Although youngest Nolan brother, Alex, is working hard to live up to their parent’s bad behaviour – drinking and moping in the wake of his divorce.

Sam repeatedly bumps into Lucy after her apocalyptic break-up, and he is curious about her and enchanted with her sad green eyes. Friends with Justine, Sam is more than happy to try wooing the clearly wounded Lucy. And when Kevin and Alice get engaged, Lucy becomes increasingly open to Sam’s no-strings-attached flirtations.

What do you do when the magic leaks out of life? How do you learn to take a leap of faith when history tells you you’ll just end up with another busted heart …?

‘Rainshadow Road’ is the second novel in Lisa Kleypas’s contemporary romance series, ‘Friday Harbor’.

I have a deep affection for Lisa Kleypas’s original contemporary romance series, the ‘Travis’ trilogy. ‘Sugar Daddy’ was my first-ever Kleypas read; I didn’t know she had a long backlist of historical romance novels, and thought she was an excellent contemporary romance writer, excelling in that especially lovely romance sub-genre of ‘family saga’. But once ‘Travis’ was over (though I still have my fingers firmly crossed for a Joe book) I was a little bummed to learn that she had no other contemporaries for me to plough through. Sure, I went back and read her ‘Wallflowers’ and ‘Hathaways’ series, but I really wanted another modern-day foray. So I was thrilled when the ‘Friday Harbor’ series was announced. Unfortunately, first book ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ left me thoroughly disappointed. Sure, I liked the story and set-up, the romance was okay (if a little tepid), but the short length of the first novel left me frustrated. But I had high hopes for the rest of this series – especially because I loved the San Juan setting, in an idyllic little town just off the Washington coast.

Lucy Marinn is our protagonist in this second instalment. The book opens in flashback to Lucy’s childhood when her younger sister, Alice, contracted meningitis and was subsequently treated like a princess by her mother and father (a trend that followed into adulthood). Flash forward and Kleypas introduces us to an older Lucy experiencing her worst day, when her long-term boyfriend announces he’s dumping her, for her younger sister. And if that sounds fairly soap-operaish, you’d be right. The dumping scene is not a great start to the book – a bit ham-fisted and totally contrived, this opener is Kleypas taking a sledgehammer and hitting readers over the head with our sympathy for Lucy. But Kleypas eventually dials it down a couple of notches, and in subsequent disaster scenes she manages to elicit genuine sympathy for poor old Lucy. It starts with a glass of beer spilled down her top, and then a bicycle accident… all these little/big annoyances that culminate in Lucy’s worst year.

But there’s a silver lining when she meets Sam Nolan, local wine grower and once blacklisted Nolan brother. The push-pull of their romance comes from Sam’s firm ‘no commitment’ rule, and Lucy’s personal vow that she’s swearing off men.

Despite her clunky ‘woe is me’ beginning, I did come to like Lucy. Her bad luck and unfair accidents turn her personal plights endearing, but more appealing is her decision to soldier on despite all the downhill turns, and the funny spin she puts on her romantic catastrophes;

“I don’t trust my instincts where men are concerned,” Lucy said. “It’s like this article I read the other day about the decline of the firefly population. One of the reasons they’re disappearing is because of modern artificial lighting. Fireflies can’t find the signals of their mates, because they’re so distracted by porch lights, streetlamps, illuminated sign letters…”
“Poor things,” Zöe said.
“Exactly,” Lucy said. “You think you’ve found the perfect mate and you heard for him, blinking as fast as you can, and then you find out he’s a Bic lighter. I just can’t handle that again.”

Sam was a little more ho-hum for me. He’s set-up as a big ladies man, the ultimate love em’ and leave em’ sort – but he comes across fairly watered-down, compared to his Lothario reputation. He’s no Hardy Cates, that’s to be sure. I get the impression that if this had have been one of Kleypas’s historical romances; Sam would have revelled in being a cad. But because this is contemporary romance, Sam comes across a little more ‘PC’, and the modern rule of casual ‘no-strings-attached’ relationships covers a multitude of sins. Sam was fine; he just wasn’t a stand out Kleypas hero like she normally excels at writing.

There is a touch of magic in this second book, that wasn’t in the first ‘Friday Harbor’ outing. Lucy has the ability to turn glass into living things (fireflies, hummingbirds etc). Sam also has a bit of magic behind his green thumb.

Lucy had struggled to understand how and why it happened, until she had read a quote by Einstein – that one had to live as though everything was a miracle, or as if nothing was a miracle. And then she had understood that whether she called her gift a phenomenon or molecular physics, or magic, both definitions were true, and the words didn’t matter anyway.

I was a little perplexed by the magic in ‘Rainshadow Road’. It’s not at all a focus of the book – it’s just another attribute to the characters. But it did feel cheesy – yes, yes; we know that true love is magic. But inserting actual magic into the story wasn’t terribly subtle, or clever. Lucy’s magic scenes pop up at random, and were so understated as to be forgotten – until the next glass-turned-hummingbird scene.

I was also a little disappointed in this book because it didn’t feel like Kleypas’s usual family saga. In all her past series, ‘Wallflowers’, ‘Hathaways’ and especially ‘Travis’ – past characters make endearing cameos, and readers are able to follow the progress of romances from past books. I love that in all those series, old characters pop up and we’re offered a glimpse into how their happily-ever-after is going. Less so in ‘Rainshadow Road’. Mark is present for a lot of the book, but his ‘Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor’ lady love, Maggie, is in one paltry scene – and even in that she isn’t given the opportunity to bounce off of (let alone talk to) Lucy. ‘Friday Harbor’ should feel like a real family saga – set on a small island where the Nolans have a reputation that precedes them. Alas, there’s really no sense of family in this series. Even scenes with Sam’s orphaned niece, Holly, are few and far between.

Another niggling annoyance in ‘Rainshadow Road’ was the unresolved story of Lucy’s parents. In light of Alice’s actions, Lucy’s mother consoles her heartbroken daughter with an anecdote from her own life, about how she and Lucy’s father came to be married. This is quite a revelation, and I was desperate for Lucy to chase this story up, have a heart-to-heart with her dad and get some perspective on their marriage. Kleypas sets this side-story up beautifully, but doesn’t go anywhere with it. The story of Lucy’s parents is, in some ways, even better than the Lucy/Kevin/Alice/Sam saga – and I wanted some resolution.

‘Rainshadow Road’ was okay, but I’m not nearly as enamoured of this series as other Kleypas books. It’s lacking that certain something. It’s hard to put my finger on it… this series just doesn’t have that verve or spark. I do look forward to third book ‘Dream Lake’, coming August this year. The third book is about Nolan black sheep, Alex – hopefully third time will be a charm for me with this series.

2.5/5

'Burned' Void City #4 by J.F. Lewis

 From the BLURB:

Immortal. Ingenious. And downright infuriating.

Void City's resident badass vampire has a secret to keep, everything to lose, and a plan to win it all. Eric has taken control of the city's supernatural hierarchy, putting all the deals and contracts that allow Void City to function up for renegotitation. When he installs his insane vampire daughter, Greta, as Void City's sheriff of the supernatural, bloody mayhem ensues.

To further complicate things, the love of Eric's life is back from the dead, immortally young, at a cost that has put Eric under the thumb of a very powerful demon. The mysterious mouser Talbot, morose mage Magbidion, and all of Eric's thralls are trying to help him keep things under control...

But with early onset Alzheimer's, vampire hunters, demons, a band of chupacabra, a cursed cousin with a serious grudge, and Rachel as his new "handler"... there's just not an app for that.

** warning, this review contains SPOILERS for the last three ‘Void City’ books **

When we left him in Void City, vampire bad-ass Eric had just made a deal with hell to get back the only woman he has ever loved . . .  now he’s unwittingly King of the city’s vamps and tasked with completing a series of torturous hellish missions to keep his lady-love, Marilyn.

If The Plan goes right, Eric might just get everything he has ever wanted – both before and after he turned vampire – but if he fails, everyone he cares about might pay the price.

‘Burned’ is the fourth book in J.F. Lewis’s rollicking urban fantasy ‘Void City’ series.

This is my fourth rodeo with J.F. Lewis, Eric & Co. You’d really think that by now I'd know the name of the game – that ‘Void City’ is a rude & crude series, delighting in gross-out horror and a tantalizingly jerky protagonist. But in his fourth venture, J.F. Lewis sweeps the rug out from under readers and gives his series a revamp (har, har!).

At the end of third book, ‘Crossed’, Eric was offered the impossible . . .  having his true love returned to him from the bowels of Hell. Never mind that at the time he was married to his vampire child, Tabitha, or screwing around with her little demoness sister, Rachel. Put aside the fact that Eric learnt not too long ago of Marilyn and Roger’s betrayals when the two were alive and human. Eric was offered the one thing in life he has ever cared about – returned to him, immortal and young again – and that was one temptation he refused to pass up. So he made an open-ended deal with Hell, agreed to complete some Demon’s ridiculous mission objectives, all in the name of love.

Thus, when ‘Burned’ begins Marilyn is back – no longer the cantankerous old lady chain-smoker of first book ‘Staked’ (well, still a chain-smoker) but this time immortal and impenetrable (even by Eric himself, no matter how much he moons after her). Marilyn is like Joan Harris in ‘Mad Men’, all red hair, curves and wicked smoulder – with a braying laugh and endless reams of guilt for the tasks Eric is having to accomplish, to earn her back from Hell. With Marilyn’s addition to the ‘Void City’ cast, the entire series has undergone a total game-changer.

From the start of ‘Void City’, Eric has never pretended to be anything other than a stone-cold killer. He makes no apologies or excuses for his murderous streak – except to say, ‘I’m a vampire. Deal with it.’ He is as ruthless with his human dinners as he is with his lady loves – the various women who have come in and out of his life, tepid imitations of his one true love, Marilyn. Even when he married Tabitha he was screwing her sister on the side – and in his wedding vows promised to cheat on her and be an all-round terrible husband. The only woman in Eric’s life of late, who he hasn’t royally screwed over, is his adopted vampire child, Greta. But, with Marilyn entering the scene as a new main character in ‘Burned’, it seems that Eric’s stead-fast stance of morally ambiguous anti-hero revelry is being flipped on its axis, and all in the name of true love. . .

“Whatever it is, I’ll do it.” Yeah, I know. Not so smart. But since Marilyn was alive, okay, nearby, and even young again . . .  Why should I care about the bad things that happen in the world as long as they don’t happen to her? I'd seen her die with my own eyes, watched her soul get sucked into hell, and then . . .  in spite of everything . . .  I got her back.
I won. I won. I fucking won! I still wanted to shout it from the rooftops.

That’s not to say that Eric and Marilyn don’t have ‘issues’. She’s uneasy with the Hell tasks he is carrying out in her name, and she flat refuses to start anything up with him. But Eric lives in hope, and it’s a different (dare I say, crushing?) side of Eric that we read in ‘Burned’.

Of course, amidst all this talk of love and glimmering redemption, there is still plenty of ass-kicking. Void City’s police force needs a spring clean, and as Eric carries out his missions from Hell there are enough limbs, blood and weregeckos to go round.

But ‘Burned’ does feel like a bit of a rebirth for ‘Void City’. New characters are entering the scene, while a few old favourites are being slowly pushed out. As well as Marilyn, a new vampire cousin of Eric’s joins the cast of quirks. Evelyn is a vampire with a detachable head, who has a vendetta against Eric, but unwittingly becomes Greta’s sheriff side-kick. Greta and Evelyn sometimes steal the show in ‘Burned’ – their repartee is often garish and gruesome mixed with random hilarity, and some of their scenes are Tarantino-esque (picture the sedate ‘Royale with Cheese’ conversation in ‘Pulp Fiction’, right before a bloody shoot-out). Greta and Evelyn have great chemistry, and while their scenes showed a whole new level of craziness to the already mad-as-a-hatter Greta, I also laughed the hardest with these two. Like when they were trying to decide on ‘special cop names’;

“Pinky and the Brain is more like it,” she grumbled, letting her head drift higher so we were almost looking each other in the eye.
“Hmmm.” I thought that over. “I don’t know that it fits.” I narrowed my eyes at her, flashing them red for a brief moment.
“Try saying ‘Narf’.”
“Narf,” she said without enthusiasm.

Like I said, these new characters are wonderful additions to the ‘Void City’ crew, but I did feel a slight twinge of disappointment that two old favourites seem to be getting shuffled out. Rachel and Tabitha – the disastrous sister pairing are actually two of my favourite characters. Rachel, because I love to hate her and Tabitha because I've enjoyed my frustrations with her. In ‘Burned’ both of these girls have much more diminutive roles than in the last three books, and it’s a bit of a shame. Rachel, I can understand had to have a slightly less demanding role since her nefarious plans were revealed in ‘Crossed’. But Tabitha is being kicked aside as Eric faces up to his affections for Marilyn. In ‘Burned’ he urges Tabitha to forget about him, move on and do something with her life. And that’s a great bit of advice for Tabitha – because as he (and readers) knows, Tabitha is a lot smarter and funnier than anyone gives her credit for. And for that reason I do hope that her smaller role in ‘Burned’ is not an indication of her being slowly clapped off the ‘Void City’ stage. I still think she has a lot to offer – and some of my favourite scenes in the book were between all the women; when Evelyn, Greta and Tabitha had a heart-to-heart, and even more when Tabitha and Marilyn nutted out some pressing questions. Brilliant!

‘Burned’ is a game-changer of a book. Just when I thought I had Eric and all his bad-assery all mapped out, J.F. Lewis goes and reveals new facets to Eric’s soul, and shines a burning glimmer of hope on his redemptive path. Marilyn’s addition to the cast has spun the ‘Void City’ series into a whole new stratosphere of awesome, and not since Starsky & Hutch has there been such a good cop pairing as in Greta and LEGO-head Evelyn. I didn’t think it was possible, but with ‘Burned’ I have fallen a little bit more in love with J.F. Lewis’s ‘Void City’ series. Now gimme, gimme, gimme the fifth book!

5/5

'The Wrong Boy' by Suzy Zail

From the BLURB:

Hanna Mendel liked to know what was going to happen next. She was going to be a famous concert pianist. She was going to wear her yellow dress to the dance on Saturday night.

But she didn’t plan on her street being turned into a ghetto. She didn’t plan on being rounded up and thrown in a cattle truck. She didn’t plan on spending her sixteenth birthday in Auschwitz, in a wooden barrack with two hundred other prisoners.

Most of all, Hanna didn’t plan on falling in love with the wrong boy.

Hanna Mendel has a dream to follow in the footsteps of her musical muse, Clara Schumann, the celebrated German pianist. Hanna is only fifteen, and already her musical talents have seen her debut at the Debrecen Town Hall and play at the Goldmark Hall. By eighteen, Hanna hopes to shadow Clara and be playing to sell-out crowds in Vienna . . . then Hitler and the war came to Hungary, and everything changed.

Hanna and her family have been living in a ghetto; sectioned off with other Juden (Jews), and slowly their world began to alter. Her non-Jewish friends stopped talking to her at school. Her father, a talented watch-maker, had his business close down. The Mendel family have tried to cope in these trying times of war; Hanna, her father, mother and older sister, Erika all living day-to-day within the confines of the ghetto. These are difficult times to be Jew, but so long as the family has each other, they should be fine.

One night the ghetto is evacuated. Everyone is told to pack a bag and enough food to last three days. The Jews are being taken to a work camp.

Hanna and her family leave their apartment, their valuables and small mementos behind (save for a C-sharp black key from Hanna’s beloved piano). They will be there when they come back, when this war ends . . .  But no one is prepared for the journey before them.

All the Jews are herded into cattle trains; made to stand for days on end while the train clambers along the countryside, taking them to Poland and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

At Auschwitz Hanna, Erika and their mother are separated from their father – with a flick of his cane, Josef Mengele sends healthy workers to the right, while the children, elderly and infirm are sent to the left and never seen again. . .

The women are stripped, shaved and tattooed. Hanna is now A10573, and put to work in the quarry like everyone else. But it quickly becomes apparent that the Auschwitz slogan ‘Arbeit macht frei’ (work sets you free) is a cruel taunt. Everyone works for mouldy bread and muddied water. Block leaders whip and beat the women if they so much as look at them the wrong way . . .  Auschwitz is no work camp, Hanna decides, rather it is a place of death.

And then a miracle; Auschwitz commandant, Captain Jager, needs a pianist. He will be holding an audition for one girl to be his entertainment when he wines and dines guests. This is a mixed blessing – the lucky pianist will be alone in Jager’s home and able to steal scraps of food and have a respite from the back-breaking quarry work. But Jager’s last pianist lost a finger when she hit the wrong key, and to be caught stealing means a bullet to the head.

Hanna is successful and wins the audition – and it is in Jager’s house, playing for his SS officer friends, that Hanna first sees Karl, Jager’s son. What starts as contempt for the beautiful boy turns into something more, something dangerous and forbidden.

‘The Wrong Boy’ is the new young adult novel from Australian author Suzy Zail.

I first heard about Suzy Zail’s novel from Adele, of Persnickety Snark fame. Then I was told that Ms Zail had attended the same RMIT Writing & Editing course as me, and that a couple of my friends were mentioned in her ‘Acknowledgements’. So, long before I actually read the book, I was excited for all the whispers of brilliance, and because the blurb was thoroughly intriguing. And now that I have devoured the novel, I must say that all the advance praise is utterly deserved. ‘The Wrong Boy’ is a beautifully crushing read, and I hope it gets nominated for a few young adult literary awards in 2012.

From 1933 to 1945, six million Jews were killed in the Holocaust; though this is a rough estimate, since it’s impossible to precisely know the extent of the slaughter. Of the six million, it is again roughly estimated that 450,000 Hungarian Jews perished. And in Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp alone, over one million Jews were murdered.

Suzy Zail’s story is somewhat inspired by her father who, she explains in her author’s note, was sent to Auschwitz when he was just thirteen-years-old. She has previously written a book about how her father survived the Holocaust, titled ‘The Tattooed Flower’, but ‘The Wrong Boy’ is a work of fiction . . .  based around a tragic and dark moment in human history.

‘The Wrong Boy’ is a tough read, and so it should be. Many times I had to put the book down, unable to read through my tears. But by the last page I was ready to sell this novel on street corners – I’m already imploring friends to borrow my copy, and I intend to tell my aunt to recommend the book to her students (she is of Austrian descent, and a German language teacher at a Melbourne high school). This novel left me raw, but I’m bloody glad I read it.

Through Hanna’s eyes, Suzy Zail explores all aspects of the Holocaust. We learn of the slow unfolding before the war, when Jews were ghettoized and made to live with ‘their own kind’. Hanna speaks about the non-Jewish friends who abandoned her, the neighbours who turned a blind eye. At Auschwitz, Zail delves into the little-discussed politics within the concentration camp and barracks hierarchy. Block leaders were assigned to keep people in check – Jewish women who were also prisoners, but ranked above the rest (and often with a coloured patch on their uniforms, identifying them as murderers). When Hanna is assigned as Captain Jager’s pianist, she and her family experience derision from their barrack mates, who believe Hanna is like those women in the camp who spread their legs for the soldiers.

Throughout the novel Hanna is seemingly in two worlds – within the camp she witnesses the horrors and injustices – women picked off one by one when they don’t pass the morning fitness test, and the way that they eventually turn on one another for a scrap of bread or a dead woman’s shoes. And then she ventures into Captain Jager’s luxurious home, where she is made to play Mozart and Wagner, making herself sick as she entertains his uniformed friends;

I closed my eyes and tried to slip inside the music but I couldn’t get in. I squeezed my eyes shut but it was still there, an image flickering against the backs of my eyelids – a man with silver hair bent over a dead body, prying open lips and pulling at gold teeth. I opened my eyes and stared at keys, but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t force my way in. I stared at the notes dancing across the page and felt sick. 

Playing in Jager’s home means Hanna also comes into contact with his beautiful son, Karl. The boy will not meet Hanna’s eyes, and she is convinced that she disgusts him – the dirty Jew in his home. But the months pass with requiems, Chopin, Beethoven and the ‘Moonlight Sonata’ . . .  and Hanna begins to see Karl in a new light, even if he is the wrong boy for her.

The romance in Zail’s novel is complex and sure to keep the reader on edge, but is really second-tier to the politics and sadness within Auschwitz. Zail writes about life in the concentration camp with striking clarity and ruthlessness; and these scenes within the camp’s walls are utterly harrowing. Because ‘The Wrong Boy’ is set in Auschwitz, Zail writes about real figures of the Holocaust and Nazi party – Josef Mengele, for example, assumes his role as the ‘Angel of Death’, the camp’s man with the cane who chose who lived and who died. Zail also touches on Mengele’s role as camp doctor, when Hanna’s hometown friends, twin girls, are hand-picked by Mengele and taken from the barracks. . .

Hanna is a brilliant heroine. Throughout the book she sways between terror, anger and profound sadness - but her determination is constant. She simply will not succumb to death in this putrid camp,  and she will do anything to help her family survive with her. She is an inspiring heroine, and an utterly compelling narrator.

I don’t want to give anything away about the ending, particularly concerning who lives and dies. But I really liked that at the end, Zail touches on yet another aspect of the Holocaust – the return. Those Jewish survivors who returned to their homes across Europe, only to find they no longer existed. In the aftermath of liberation there are rumours of Jews fleeing to Palestine, where they intend to build an army. Other Jews are talking about finding solace in Australia – as far away from Europe as they can get. This is a whole other facet to the Holocaust, and just as interesting, so I fully intend to read Zail’s ‘The Tattooed Flower’ to get more insight into this aftermath.

I am fascinated by history, always have been. I remember reading ‘The Diary of Anne Frank’ in year six and being crushed by the book’s epilogue, which described Anne’s death from typhus in a concentration camp. Going into high school and finally learning about the ideologies that led to The Holocaust was both interesting, and disheartening. That people can be swayed to violence and inhumanity by nothing but madness and prejudice . . .  it’s sickening. Even more so when you see picture evidence of the suffering – skeletal people in rags and shaved heads, looking like ghosts as they stare out of black and white photos. And those photos of bodies piled like mountains, discarded and buried en masse. It doesn’t matter how many documentaries I watch, or history books I read – seeing photos of the concentration camps, those faces and inhuman bodies absolutely floors me. I don’t want to believe that human beings can be so cruel to one another. But we can.

The young adult genre seems to produce some wonderfully complex and important fiction books about the Holocaust; Morris Gleitzman’s ‘Once’ series, ‘The Boy in the Striped Pajamas’ by John Boyne, and of course certain nominees in the ‘Sydney Taylor Book Awards for Older Readers and Teen Readers’ (books that exemplify the highest literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience). ‘The Wrong Boy’ is vital reading, another harrowing but important fictionalized account of the darkest period of human history. I hope that Zail’s novel gets put up for a few literary awards this year. 'The Wrong Boy' is a book that, anyone who reads it will be moved, and enraged by the history and truth within its pages.

5/5

'Abreast' by Danielle M. Binks

Lucy found the photo, and looked at her mum’s breasts for the first time.

It had been nestled between the pages of Cloudstreet, a white-edged Polaroid of mum sprawled in bed amid a tumble of twisted sheets. Her face is beaming beatific with the haze of morning pinking her cheeks; her shoulders are smooth and brown and perked below are two magnificent mammary mounds.

She is young in this photo, Lucy thought, a little bit older than I am now.

Her eyes are without webbings of crow’s feet, hair cut short and punkish with an easy smile. Lucy thought, she looks beautiful, and was surprised that tripping over this notion was the realization; I look just like her.

Lucy’s own nipples are the same dusky dark rose, with a light framing areola. Both of their nipples are flattened and large, and their breasts also look to have the same heft; a clearly comfortable C-cup that drooped when left without support.

Lucy wouldn’t say it of her own, but her mum’s tits were beautiful. They looked the way all those old romance novels described, the bodice-rippers her mum used to keep on the top shelf when Lucy was younger. She’d gotten her hands on a few when she was nine and fascinated by the bulging pectorals and tree-trunk thighs of the dashing heroes. In those books, boobs were always described like food – creamy and frothing above the lace edging of the gown. Or else they were painted painfully, all heaving and straining against the confines of the corset.

In this photo, Lucy’s mum gave all those damsels in distress and swooning sisters a run for their money.

‘Come help me bring the groceries in!’

At the shout, Lucy hastily tucked the photo back between the pages, and walked to the kitchen table where her school bag was slung.

Just as she was shoving the orange-edged book away, her mum came waddling in with hands full of plastic bags.

‘Luc, go to the car and grab the rest of the food please?’ she asked, tottering into the kitchen.

Lucy did as she was told, and when she came back inside her mum was already stacking soup cans in the pantry.

Lucy watched her. She watched her mother reach up, the shirt she wore clinging and stretching across her flattened chest. She watched her mum bend down and pick up another can, shirt gaping open in front to reveal no bra and nothing to hold even if she did wear one.

‘You right there, darl?’ her mum asked, and Lucy blinked at her, and then stretched out her arm to offer the can she was clutching.

‘Got homework?’

‘Yeah, English reading.’ Lucy replied.

‘What are you reading?’ her mum asked, bending and gaping again.

‘Cloudstreet,’ Lucy mumbled, transfixed by the emptiness down her mum’s shirt.

For a moment her mum stopped stacking, she straightened and smiled so beautifully at Lucy that she almost resembled that bare-chested punk from the Polaroid.

‘I love that one,’ said on a sigh. ‘I should read it again some time.’

Lucy just nodded.

‘I’ll have a copy on the shelf,’ her mum said, ‘feel free to borrow it if you want.’

•

That night, after dinner and the nightly news and mum and dad arguing over how to stack the dishwasher, Lucy went to her room claiming homework.

She locked the door, took off her t-shirt, unclasped her bra and cupped her breasts. She splayed her cold hands around the tender orbs and squeezed. They felt smooth as petals but fit to burst like water balloons. She jiggled and bounced them, watched in the mirror as they swayed and swung. She leant forward and let them hang like pendulums. She ran light fingers across her nipples and watched them pucker then extend. Biting her lip, she pinched and twisted then rubbed in circles.

She lay her hands over both boobs, spread like she was hand-painting, and then she pressed them to her chest. She tried to level them as much as she could, squishing them to her body to try and press the roundness to flat terrain. And then she looked at herself in the full-length mirror and tried to imagine not having boobs, just like her mum.

Lucy knew the story. She knew the little kid version and the grown up truth.

Mama was sick while Lucy was growing inside.

Invasive Lobular Carcinoma.

Mama didn’t want Lucy to get sick too.

An invasive cancer that spreads through the tissue of the breast.

So, Mama waited. She waited until little Lucy was ready to come out and then she decided to take her medicine.

The tumour spread.

Mama took her medicine and she got better.

Mastectomy was recommended.

Mama got better for good.

Lucy’s family photo album is stuttering; full of stops and starts and gaps. There are photos of her as a red wrinkled babe, swaddled in blanket. Pictures of her mum holding her close, and her dad smiling proud. Flip through a little farther though and you’ll see a single shot of her mum with tubes up her nose and a weak hand waving floppily at the camera, a tired smirk on her face.

And then there’s a pause. Hardly any photos of Lucy and her mum in the beginning years.

Lucy’s baby photos are posed with her dad or by herself; newborn in the bath and sucking on her toes, atop daddy’s shoulders and biting his nose.

Lucy has hardly any memories of her mum from when she was younger. She remembers wearing floaties in the pool with dad, and riding Puffing Billy with him too. But her mum is out of focus in these memories. She’s the person behind the camera, or waving from the platform.

Mum doesn’t swim they would say. Not today, pumpkin was her mum’s go-to reply.

One mummy memory Lucy does have is seeing beneath her bathers one day, at the beach, when Lucy was six and her mum was feeling brave.

Her dad was turning blue trying to puff up Lucy’s floating lady-bird toy, and mum had been sweating in the front seat watching him wheeze.

‘I think I’ll go in today,’ her mum said to no one.

Lucy squealed. Her dad stopped puffing and said something to mum that Lucy can’t remember now. And then her mum got the towels. She’d rigged them up between the car doors; the front door and back door opened and the windows wound a little down to tuck a towel between the two.

When she changed Lucy into her bathers and floaties and rash-vest her mum just did it in the middle of the parking lot, who cares who sees? But when her mum needed to get changed she had to make a fitting room in the car park.

Lucy’s dad was puffing and the lady-bird wasn’t getting any bigger. The waves were making the sound of sea-shells and Lucy could see other little kids putting their toes in the surf. She wanted to go in the water right now, so she went to tell mum. She ducked beneath the towel and saw her mum with bather bottoms on and nothing else.

Her mum had yelled. She’d grabbed the towels and wrapped herself up tight and then sat in the front seat of the car again, not talking to Lucy or her dad when they tried to coax her out to play.

Lucy never forgot knowing it looked painful.

The outline where her mother’s breasts once lay, still raised to give the impression of roundness, gone to waste.

The scar itself was puckered and pink, the width of a five-cent coin and slashed horizontal across the chest.

Slits instead of nipples.

•

One night Lucy was reading Cloudstreet on the couch in front of the telly.

‘Do you like it, Luc?’ her mum asked, pulling her eyes away from the dancing stars.

‘Yeah, yeah, it’s really good. I’ve cried a bit.’

‘Good,’ her mum smiled, and went back to watching the glittering starlets.

Lucy watched her mum watching the twirling woman in a rhinestone bustier, all big hair and white teeth.

‘You should read it again, mum.’

Her mum nodded.

‘No, really,’ Lucy said, and her mum looked over at her with a frown. ‘It’s just that it’s really good and I’d talk to you about it after, once you’ve read it again.’

‘Okay, darl. Leave it for me when you’re done and I’ll give it another read.’

•

And the next day and every day till the end of term Lucy bought her mum’s breasts to school, nestled between the pages of Cloudstreet.

She couldn’t say why. Why she wanted her mum’s cleavage with her when she read Fish and the Pickles’, the drowning and the Shifty Shadow. She didn’t show anyone her mum’s photo, as if! She just wanted it there, to remind her of something she couldn’t remember to never forget.

When Lucy got to the last day of term she bought the book home. She read the beginning again, then flipped to the end and got out her pen.

She removed her mum’s Polaroid from between the pages, turned it over and wrote; Do you miss them? on the back in a scratchy scrawl.

Lucy tucked the photo inside ‘Cloudstreet’, resting at the chapter of ‘Dwellingplace’.

 •
BELOW: Me, meeting John Marsden (taken right before I tell him that 'Checkers' is one of my favourite books, ever, and I start blubbering from the sheer weight of awesomeness that comes from getting to shake hands with one of your idols).
 

© Danielle M. Binks 2011

This story came second place in Express Media's 2011 John Marsden Prize for Young Australian Writers

'Unbroken' Outcast Season #4 by Rachel Caine

 Received from the Publisher

From the BLURB:

For millennia, Cassiel was a powerful Djinn-until she was exiled to live among mortals.  Now the threat of an apocalypse looms, and Cassiel is in danger of losing everything she has come to hold dear . . .

As the world begins to fall apart around her, Cassiel finds herself fighting those she once called her own: the Djinn.  With Warden Luis Rocha and the rescued child Ibby by her side, Cassiel struggles to find a way to protect those who are in her charge and come to terms with the leadership role she never asked for.

Cassiel is opposed by Pearl – a powerful Djinn bent on raising an army of kidnapped Warden children to bring about nothing less that the end of the world.  It will take everything Cassiel has to stop the Djinn from starting a war that will wipe all of humanity from the face of the earth.  She knows that this might not be a battle she can survive, but protecting those she loves is worth any cost . . .

Cassiel was once a powerful Djinn, until she took a stand and had humanity forced upon her. Since that time she has bared witness to imminent human destruction – experienced love, pain and loss, and gained an unbreakable connection with the human warden, Luis, and his niece Isabel.

When a deranged and ruthless Djinn called Pearl set out to kidnap warden children and harness their untapped powers for her own means, Cass was on the front lines with Luis – fighting to rescue young Isabel, but also to protect the human race.

Now Isabel is returned to them, much changed. And Pearl is not the only danger on the horizon – Mother is awake, and she is about to unleash her anger on planet earth, the likes of which humans, wardens and Djinn have never seen.

Lines have been drawn, the battle ground set. Cass has chosen her allies, and now she will take a final stand with them.

‘Unbroken’ is the fourth and final book in Rachel Caine’s ‘Weathr Warden’ spin-off series, ‘Outcast Season’.

It was with deep regret and duelling satisfaction that I read the final instalment in Rachel Caine’s phenomenal ‘Weather Warden’ series. Joanne Baldwin and Djinn David’s story ended in 2010, but the sting of their ending was somewhat lessened by Caine’s spin-off series, about a Djinn turned human called Cassiel. The ‘Outcast Season’ was a wonderful additional dimension to the brilliant ‘Weather Warden’ series, offering up more perspective about the Djinn world and an interesting new character in Cass, who was struggling as much with her unwanted humanity as her remnants of Djinn personality.

Alas, all good things must come to a (definite, conclusive and unmistakable) end; such is the case with ‘Outcast Season’. Rachel Caine has always maintained that Cass & Co. had a definite story arc in this spin-off series, and their tale would be told in four books. With ‘Unbroken’ released this February, we are now at the absolute end of the ‘Weather Warden’ world. And, like with ‘Total Eclipse’ that concluded Jo & David’s story, ‘Unbroken’ is such a befitting conclusion to a radical series that, as a fan, there is no bitterness to be found in this swan song. . .

When the story begins, Isabel is newly rescued from Pearl’s clutches, but Luis and Cass are only just beginning to fathom the extent of Isabel’s abuse. With her newly tapped power, Isabel has a maturity beyond her six years, and she will not stand being treated like a child any longer. She does something awful and destructive to herself, the ramifications of which will be felt for the rest of her life. And that’s how ‘Unbroken’ kicks off – absolutely hitting the ground running and throwing readers right into Isabel’s delicate psyche, as well as Luis & Cass’s predicament not only as her guardians, but as wardens trying to harness this young child’s power.

Also making an early appearance is everyone’s favourite bad-ass and buck-naked Djinn, Rashid. I was so happy that he made a reappearance in this final instalment, and his scenes are brilliant, particularly for how they impact on Isabel;

Isabel grabbed on to me and hugged me, wordless and shaking. I hugged her back and looked over at Rashid, who inclined his head just a tiny bit.
“You’re sane,” I said.
“Well,” he replied, with a sharp-toothed smile, “that is not a common opinion. But I am no longer a puppet of the Mother’s will. Only of hers.” He cast a dark look at Isabel, and my arms tightened around her in reaction.
“You are well aware how I feel about such things.”
“Don’t,” I warned him. “She’s a child.”
“Old enough to hold my bottle,” he said. “Though that was your doing, my sweet dear cousin, sticking me in one. For the second time. There will come a reckoning. Soon.”

Also along for the finale is Esmeralda – the snake/human warden whose power warped her and imprisoned her in a partial reptilian body. ‘Es’ cannot be trusted, but has become fast (and unlikely) friends with Isabel. I loved these two together! They are a fantastic, if chilling, team – and even though their scenes have a lot of unlikely camaraderie, reading them will also set you on edge because you just know that Es could snap at any moment. . .

One wonderful thing about ‘Unbroken’ is that the ‘Outcast’ timeline is made to match up with the ‘Weather Warden’ series – after being out-of-sync for three books now, ‘Unbroken’ is on the same timeline trajectory as ‘Total Eclipse’. And, best of all, Lewis Orwell, Jo Baldwin and David Prince all make lengthy cameos in ‘Unbroken’. Even better is that most of their scenes are alternatives to what happened in ‘Total Eclipse’ – so while we were following Jo’s narrative in that book, in ‘Unbroken’ we get to read what was happening with David and Lewis in certain scenes. Brilliant!

Of course one big drawcard of Cass’s story has been her romance with the Warden, Luis. Let me just say that these two are epically adorable in ‘Unbroken’ – and a big focus of this book is on the redemptive and restorative powers of their love. Another big ‘spiritual’ focus of the book is on how Cass is experiencing a very human emotion and conundrum – the absence of hope. As the world ravages itself and Mother turns on her children, Cass is left to question everything she has known and truly understand what it is to be human, and succumb to doubt and despair. It makes for some intense, poignant scenes;

The enemy of my enemy. . .
“Mother,” I whispered, close to tears. “How could you desert us? How could you bring us to this?”
But the Mother had never spoken to me, not directly, and she did not do so now. There was only darkness, and silence.

Rachel Caine’s ‘Weather Warden’ series was one of the best and most original fantasy series of recent years. Beginning in 2003, ‘Weather Warden’ draws to an absolute final close in 2012, with the end of its spin-off ‘Outcast Season’ series. As with Jo and David, Luis and Cass have been on one hell of a ride, and Rachel Caine gives them an explosive and wonderfully befitting send-off in ‘Unbroken’. I absolutely urge any and all ‘Weather Warden’ fans to dip into this spin-off series, if you haven’t already.

5/5